Last Jew of Treblinka

by Chil Rajchman

  As I am standing at work at the table and beginning to get the hang of using the tools, we hear the above-mentioned knocking at our windows. Our group leader already has noticed that the ramp is starting to work, that the special ramp commando is about to open the doors. He appoints six men to go out onto the path where the carriers run with the corpses. He has included me in the group.

  Each member of the group takes along two pairs of pliers. We then go outside to the transport. From the carpentry workshop, where among the carpenters is Yankl Wiernik (a Treblinka survivor whose “A Year in Treblinka” was published in New York in 1944 by Unser Tsait), each one of us grabs a bowl. In our shed there is no room for the bowls, so they are kept in the carpenters’ room. A whole stack of them lies there. Each of us grabs a little water at the well and runs to work.

  At the open space in front of the ramp the scene is an inferno. The rear door has been opened. When it is opened, deadly gas fumes are emitted from inside. The corpses, all standing, are so tightly pressed together and have their hands and feet so intertwined that the ramp commando are in danger of their lives until they are able to pull out the first few dozen corpses. The bodies then become looser and the corpses start to fall out by themselves. The tight compression sometimes results from the fact that people are terrorized and crammed in as they are driven into the gas chambers, so that everyone has to hold his breath in order to be able to find a bit of space. During their death agonies from asphyxiation the bodies also become swollen, and so the corpses form literally a single mass.

  There was a difference in the appearance of the dead from the small and from the large gas chambers. In the small chambers death was easier and quicker. The faces often looked as if the people had fallen asleep, their eyes closed. Only the mouths of some of the gassed victims were distorted with a bloody foam visible on their lips. The bodies were covered in sweat. Before dying, people had urinated and defecated. The corpses in the larger gas chambers, where death took longer, were horribly deformed, their faces all black as if burned, the bodies swollen and blue, the teeth so tightly clenched that it was literally impossible to open them, and to get to the gold crowns we had sometimes to pull out the natural teeth—otherwise the mouth would not open.

  The work of clearing out the corpses was divided up. In addition to the “ramp men” (about twenty men), forty to fifty carriers were employed, six “dentists” and, at the pits, a commando of grave-diggers. About ten of the latter stood in the pit and worked at laying out the corpses head to foot and foot to head so that the maximum number went in. A second group covered the corpses with sand, whereupon a second layer was laid down.

  The pits were dug by a bulldozer (later on there were three of them). The pits were enormous, about 50 metres long, about 30 wide and several storeys deep. I estimate that the pits could contain about four storeys.

  The movement, the running and chasing, the beatings at work constituted an infernal vicious circle. Over every group of workers stood several Germans or Ukrainians with whips in their hands, ceaselessly beating the Jews on their heads, backs, stomachs, hands, not much caring where the blows landed. If they did pay attention to the blows, it was to land them in a spot where it would hurt the most or where it could injure the body the most. The ramp men, the carriers and indeed everyone had to do their work at a fiendishly rapid tempo. The ramp men had to make sure that there was always a ready pile of corpses so that the carriers would not have to wait. The carriers had to grab a corpse on the run (picking out a lighter specimen from afar), throw it on the litter and gallop with it to the pit.

  The litters were in the shape of a ladder with a strap to pull over the shoulders. The “dentists” stood in a row on the way from the ramp to the pit. The first in line had the function of quickly inspecting the mouth of the corpse, and, if he noticed gold or false teeth, of passing the corpse to one of the “dentists” down the line whose hands were free. The carriers stood aside for a moment, in order not to interfere with the operation. It was not permitted to lay a corpse on the ground. The carriers then held the corpse and the “dentist” quickly seized the tooth or bridge with his pliers and extracted it as fast as possible. Careful attention had to be paid not to miss a tooth that ought to have been extracted. At the pit the Germans would look and inspect. Woe to the “dentist” who had left a gold tooth in the mouth of a corpse.

  I once experienced a case when a German noticed a gold tooth sparkling in the mouth of a corpse. Since I was the last one standing in the row of “dentists,” the blame fell on me. I had to jump into the pit at once, rolling head over heels several times. I had to extract the tooth quickly, and when I climbed out again the SS man ordered me to stretch out on the ground and administered twenty-five lashes. Another time, somewhat later, I missed a whole mouthful of teeth. Once again I was the last one in the row. All the other “dentists” were busy, the corpse was very heavy, and the carriers who were hauling it thought they could throw it into the pit without it being inspected. Standing at his post at that time was Unterscharführer Gustav. He noticed unextracted teeth in the mouth of the corpse and thereupon the same scene was repeated. This time I received perhaps seventy lashes. He beat me on my back with all his strength, always in the same spot. He nearly severed my spinal cord. When with great difficulty I got up, blood was pouring over my body and into my trousers. On my back there was a big crust of blood; the next day it became apparent that I had blood poisoning. I would undoubtedly have died from it if not for Dr. Zimmermann, who operated on me. It was my good fortune that it was a Sunday, when we were free from work. Dr. Zimmermann had all his tools with him and performed the operation in the barracks, even with anesthesia. He opened the wound and cleaned it out, and in this way saved my life.

  Chapter Ten

  The Jews of Ostrowiec are driven into the

  gas chambers at night.

  They resist.

  The astonishment of Chief Mathias.

  A new form of entertainment.

  People strive to get into the gas chambers.

  UNTIL 15 DECEMBER [1942] THE TRANSPORTS arrived regularly, approximately ten thousand people a day. If a transport arrived after 6:00 in the evening, its passengers were not gassed that day. The transport was kept at Treblinka station and only on the next day was it brought into the camp.

  As it happened, on 10 December a transport of Jews from Ostrowiec was waiting at the station. The camp administration received the announcement that the next morning a new transport would be brought to Treblinka. The Commandant gave the order that the Jews of Ostrowiec should be brought in at night. The order was carried out. By then we were locked in our barracks and could see nothing. We only heard the usual screams. But when we went out to work the next morning, we saw the traces of the events of the previous night. The ramp men opened the rear doors and began to pull out the corpses. The carriers carried them to the pits. But this time the carriers and cleaning crew of the so-called Schlauch commando had an additional task.

  The whole corridor of the structure with the three smaller gas chambers was filled with dead bodies. The floor was covered with dried blood, which reached to the ankles. We learned from the Ukrainians what had happened there. A group of about ten men who were being driven into the chambers refused to go. They resisted and, naked as they were, defended themselves with their fists and did not allow themselves to be shoved into the chambers. Thereupon the SS men opened fire on them with automatic weapons, killing them on the spot.

  The ramp men carried out the corpses, the cleaning crew washed down the corridor, the painters as always whitewashed the walls that had been covered with the blood and brains of the dead, and the building once again stood ready to receive new victims.

  Afterwards the Section Leader, Mathias, came over to us, the “dentists,” and called out to our group leader, Dr. Zimmermann—Did you know, Doctor, that those chaps tried to swindle us?

  Mathias was truly astonished and surprised. He could not grasp why the Jews did not w
illingly want to let themselves be murdered. He found this an abnormal development.

  That day was extraordinarily difficult. Soon after the first transport a second one arrived, and, as it happened, in that transport there were many gold and false teeth to extract.

  After a certain number of corpses had been dealt with, the teeth were collected in two bowls, and two dentists would take them to the well and wash them before bringing them into our shed to be worked on. In our shed there was always a supply of teeth stored in chests, and if we had not cleaned them of blood and of the bits of flesh that stuck to them, they would begin to stink.

  When there was a short pause in the work, when the cleaning crew had finished in one of the gas chambers but the second one was not yet done gassing and the victims inside still showed signs of life or one could still hear their screams, the beasts forced us to dance and sing songs to the accompaniment of the Jewish orchestra that stood next to our barracks and played without interruption.

  In December the transports grew less frequent. Some of the Germans were on leave. Mathias had left even earlier and did not return till after New Year’s 1943. When he came back he looked much worse than he had before. It seems he felt better in Treblinka than he did at home. The air of Treblinka suited him. During the two days of Christmas there were no transports at all.

  The transports began to arrive regularly once more around 10 January. That was a very difficult day. On that day fresh transports arrived. At the same time a “guest” came to us from Camp 1, Obersturmführer Franz, who was nicknamed “Lyalke” (Doll). Together with him came his dog, Barry, who was just as notorious as his master.

  Once work had resumed, the Germans began to apply new methods.

  Around 10 January, transports began arriving from the borderlands of eastern Poland, from Bialystok, Grodno and the surrounding areas. It was a hard winter with freezing temperatures. Now the sadists thought up a new form of entertainment. At a temperature of -20 Celsius they would keep rows of naked young women outdoors, not allowing them to enter the gas chambers. The men and the older women having already been asphyxiated, the rows of young women, half frozen, stood barefoot in the snow and ice, trembling, weeping, clinging to one another and begging in vain to finally be allowed into that “warmth” where death awaited them.

  The Ukrainians and Germans looked on with pleasure and mockery at the pain of the young bodies, joking and laughing, until at last they mercifully allowed them to enter the “baths.” Such scenes were repeated in the following days and continued throughout the winter.

  It is worth mentioning that in winter the extraction of teeth became much more difficult. Whether it was because the corpses froze when the doors were opened, or the result of the freezing of the victims on the way to the gas chambers, the opening of their clenched mouths was fiendishly difficult for us. The more we struggled, the more the murderers knocked us over and beat us.

  In general, even in summer, the victims tried to arrive at the gas chambers as quickly as they could during the final passage along the Schlauch. The gas chambers offered protection from the beatings, and people wanted to get everything over with as quickly as possible.

  In February 1943 great piles of ash began to accumulate as a result of the decision to begin burning the corpses. A special ash commando was organized. In the morning, when everyone went out to work, the carriers, who worked in stages, would put the ashes from the furnace grills into crates that were attached to the litters. (These crates were also used when corpses taken from the pits to be incinerated were in such a state of decomposition that they could not be placed on the ladder-shaped litters but had to be thrown piece by piece into the crates.) The carriers dumped the ashes in piles, and it was at these piles that the specially organized ash commando now worked. The work of the ash commando was as follows:

  The body parts of the corpses that had been incinerated in the ovens often kept their shape. It was not uncommon to take out whole charred heads, feet, bones etc. The workers of the ash commando then had to break up these body parts with special wooden mallets, which recalled the iron mallets used to pound gravel on motorways. Other instruments also resembled the tools used when working with sand and stone. Near the heaps of ash stood thick, dense wire meshes, through which the broken-up ashes were sifted, just as sand is sifted from gravel. Whatever did not pass through was beaten once more. The beating took place on sheet metal, which lay nearby. The carriers were not allowed to bring bones from the grills that had not been completely incinerated. They remained lying next to the furnaces and were thrown on top of the next layer of corpses that were brought in. The definitive “finished” ash had to be free of the least bit of bone and as fine as cigarette ash.

  When great piles of this kind of finished ash had accumulated, the Germans began to carry out various experiments with a view to getting rid of the ash and erasing every trace of the murders that had taken place. They tried in the first instance to convert the ash into “earth” with the help of special liquids. Experts arrived and, standing over the ash heaps, mixed the ashes with sand in various proportions. Then they poured in some sorts of liquids out of bottles. But the results did not satisfy them. After the experiments they decided to bury the ash deep in the ground under thick layers of sand.

  A shallow layer of ash was poured into the deep pits from which the corpses had been exhumed, then on top of that a shallow layer of sand, and so forth until they had reached the level of about 2 meters below the surface. The last 2 meters were filled only with sand. In this way they reckoned that they would erase forever the traces of their horrible crimes.

  The Jewish workers who were employed in the emptying of the pits nevertheless used every opportunity to leave behind in the earth some remains of human bones. Since the pits became narrower as they grew deeper, and the earth along the sides would crumble, every time the Germans and their informers were absent the workers would bury as many bones as they could beneath a layer of sand.

  The ash was poured in shallow layers—a layer of ash and a layer of sand. That was the usual procedure. The carriers who delivered the ash and sand from morning till night firmly tamped down the surface with their feet.

  I remember that every morning when we went out to work, we would notice that the surfaces of the pits had burst in dozens of places. By day the ground was firmly trodden down, but at night the blood pressed up to the surface. This raised the level to such an extent that in the morning the carriers sweated with exertion while descending into the pits with their loads of ash and sand.

  The blood of tens of thousands of victims, unable to rest, thrust itself upwards to the surface.

  Chapter Eleven

  Obersturmführer Franz and his dog Barry.

  The murderers drink to the arrival of

  the British Jews.

  A new “specialist.”

  IT IS A BEAUTIFUL DAY. THE MURDERERS ARE IN A good mood. Our Chief, Mathias, sits down on an embankment, and, along with him, his distinguished guest, Deputy Commandant Obersturmführer Franz, whom we call “Lyalke” (Doll). This Lyalke is a terrible murderer. His appearance at the open space in the camp triggers extraordinary fear. His specialty is slapping. From time to time he calls a worker over, tells him to stand at attention and gives him a powerful slap on his cheek. The victim then has to fall down and immediately get up, in order to receive a slap on the other cheek. Then he calls over his dog, Barry, who is almost as big as a man, and shouts—Man, bite that dog!—The dog is very obedient to his friend the Deputy Commandant and attacks the Jew.

  Our Chief, Mathias, invites the criminal to sit down for a while and observe how well the work is proceeding. Lyalke sits down, and they converse, smiling.

  They are in a good mood and pleased that the work is moving along at a brisk pace.

  Their hearts swell with pride as they watch the living corpses running without interruption, like demons. Everyone is at his post and in fact when they are not present the work goes even better than
usual. Their collaborators flog with their whips ceaselessly, ceaselessly …

  The murderers are content. Our Chief orders a Ukrainian to bring him a good bottle of cognac from the canteen. It doesn’t take long before his wish is fulfilled. They fill the first goblet, and the guest, Lyalke, says—We drink to the imminent arrival of the real Jews of England!

  The Section Leader is very pleased with the joke and laughs—Ja, das ist gut, das kommt sicher! (Yes, that’s good, that’s sure to happen!)

  In winter the criminals leave the women destined for the gas chambers outside at a temperature of -25 degrees Celsius. The snow is half a metre high and the murderers laugh—How beautiful it is!

  In December 1942 the criminals began to set up ovens to burn the corpses, but they did not work well, as the corpses refused to burn. For that reason a crematorium was built with special fittings. A special motor was attached that increased the flow of air, and in addition a lot of petrol was poured in. But the corpses still do not want to burn well. The maximum number of incinerated corpses reaches a thousand per day. The murderers are not satisfied with this small quantity.

  We wondered, unable to understand, why the murderers had begun to look for ways to burn the corpses of the people they had gassed. After all, we had kept on digging deeper and deeper pits, but now the tactics had changed. By pure chance we found out the reason: one of the murderers gave us a present of a piece of bread wrapped in newspaper. That was an extraordinary event for us. From the articles in the newspaper we learned that the German authorities had finally discovered, in Katyn, near Smolensk, the graves of ten thousand Polish officers who supposedly had been murdered by the Soviets. We understood that the murderers wanted to blacken the face of Soviet Russia and were therefore starting to burn the corpses so there no trace of what they had been doing would remain.